Times Change, Yet He Remains
by CrimsonKaliope
Summary: London, 1838. Victoria is on the throne and poverty and empire walk hand in hand. Hal York is an Old One, brutal beautiful and terrible. The truest of demons among his kind who all fear. Eliza Montgomery is an heiress, with different coloured eyes who has fallen under the demons spell. This is their story.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N So, my first fanfic! Hope you enjoy, and that I've gotten Hal right and its not too confusing. Please read and review as I've never 'published my stuff before!**

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**London 1832**

Hal opens his eyes. His head is swimming with the typical post kill high and he can feel the heavy wetness of blood on his skin. He lifts his head, looking blearily around the room, taking in the carnage. An older man and woman lie curled up close to each other, their hands reaching for one another, but not quite touching. Three children, a girl and two boys lie sprawled across the sparse furniture. Hal grunts as he heaves himself to his feet. He was meant to be doing something before this happened, before he saw this sweet poor family through the window. He searches his memories as he snags his coat from the hook by the door, inspecting it for bloody marks and not finding any to his satisfaction. He frowns around at the room, trying to remember, but the blood high is making his head buzz and he cannot quite think what it was he was doing before he slaughtered the family. He shakes his head and takes several deep breaths, trying to clear the fugue from his mind. He pulls open the door and steps out onto the street. It's early morning in Whitechapel and a deep river fog lies over everything. Hal wrinkles his nose at the smell of rot that always pervades this part of London. The capital is filthier then he has ever seen it, for all the advances these Victorians claim to have made. London's poor are poorer, and the rich are richer, and death is thicker on the streets then it has been since the plague and the great fire that wiped it out. He scowls, sticking his hands deep in his coat pockets and hunching his shoulders as he walks. He may be the great Lord Hal, terrible killer and vampire legend, but Whitechapel was probably the most dangerous place in London and he would rather avoid getting stabbed. Anyway, his coat was brand new, and he did not want it full of holes. He hurries through the dark twisting streets, barely thinking and just letting his feet lead how and where they wanted. He walks through the smog-smothered streets for about an hour, seemingly aimless. But though his mind has forgotten, his feet have not and when he finally stops he looks up at a sky blue front door, with a bright bronze knocker, and wonders how he could ever forget her door.

Oh this demon in the gloom

Emerges from the fog

Mayhap his eyes glow

As he looks upon

The door of his lover

And his victim

In the shadows

Hours before the day.

How could he ever forget her, after all, was not that part of why he had murdered that whole family? Just so he could stand in the same room with her, and not tear out her throat, and drink her life away. As long as he over feeds, stuffing himself until he is staggering blood drunk, he can stop himself from tearing into her, the swelling pale skin of her breasts. He shudders, pushing the image from his mind, and slaps the bronze knocker against the door thrice, listening as it booms throughout the empty corridors of the house. She knew he had been coming that night and so had sent the servants away, lessening the chances of him killing one of them just to stop him from killing her. He could hear that she had done this, because there was only one heartbeat in the silent house. He would know her heartbeat anywhere, as well as he knew her perfume, and her slightly crooked smile. The door opens a notch and he sees one clear amber eye staring out at him, a strip of pale flesh, and the corner of her full deep coloured lips. He has been invited in before and so he does not wait. He pushes open the door, causing her to stumble slightly away from him. In that moment he has moved, pressing her against the wall with his whole body, his mouth finding hers an instant later, and he crushes her to him tasting the fullness of her, the life of her, his Eliza.

'Hal!' she gasps, her fingers clutching the lapels of his coat. 'You are drunk.' he laughs, delighted and runs a trail of hot kisses down her throat. She let's out a little moan and melts against him.

'It's all for you my love. All for you, everything is for you.' He is almost babbling, incoherent with relief at being near her once again.

'Liar.' she says, but before she can say more he silences her with one of those all consuming kisses. He pulls open the front of her dressing gown, the dark blue velvet parting easily in his hands, and buries his face between her breasts. He breathes in the scent of her, warm wood and pine needles on a summer's day, the wild rushing of the river and the light smell of honeysuckle after rain.

Hal picks Eliza up easily and carries her through to the living room, his steps sure and strong, and lays her on the warm rug before the gently burning fire. He slides his hand through her deep auburn curls making them stand our in a halo around her face, making her slightly pointed chin and wide cheekbones more exotic then ever. Her eyes held him captivated as they always did, their oddness delighting him in a world he increasingly found to be dull and predictable. One eye is a bright almost unnatural amber, with burnt orange threads running through it. The other eye was sea green with pale blue threads running through. It was her eyes, almond shaped and coloured like nothing he had ever seen that had enchanted him at first. Then it had been her laugh, and her recklessness, her independence, her quick tongue and long fingered hands. Then it was simply she, Eliza, and before he knew it he was dangerously infatuated with her. Enough not to kill her? Well, almost. Enough, at least, to waylay his killing of her with enough innocent blood. Long enough to cause her to fall in love with him. And so she had, hard and fast, for she had no defense against one such as he, a man of such brilliance and age. A man from another time, with sadness and hunger written across his perfect features. How, indeed, could she resist a man like that?

They lie close together on the rug, limbs tangled and hot, his fingers twinning lazily through her hair. His mouth rests against her warm bare shoulder, and occasionally his tongue will taste the salt of her skin. His eyes are lidded with half sleep, and it is one of those rarest of moments for him, when he is almost at peace. The warmth of Eliza's limbs fool him into feeling alive once more, and her heart beat is so strong, he can almost hear his own within it. He is almost asleep when Eliza moves, the smooth sliding of her muscles telling him she is about to stand up and move away. Without thinking, he tightens his grip on her, holding her to him, his arms tight around her torso. She goes rigid immediately, and he can smell rage and fear in her breath, and before he can get a better grip she has yanked herself away from him. That wakes him up properly and he props himself up on his elbows, looking groggily at her through the dim firelight. She has grabbed her dressing gown and wraps it around her pale limbs, hiding from him what had been shown with such ease and abandon an hour before. Or so he had thought. She stands across from him, her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapped tight around her body.

'Hal… Why were you so late getting here?' He frowns in confusion. It was still dark, wasn't it?

'What do you mean?'

'I mean the sun is about to rise, and you only got here two hours ago.' He laughs dismissively, but it sounds hollow and fake even to him.

'I lost track of time, that's all. Anyway, I'm here now.'

'There's blood on you Hal. God, its all over your neck!'

He jerks up, breath going out of him as if he's been winded. He grabs his underclothes and yanks them on angrily while she stands there, watching him, shivering slightly, even though it is not cold. He pulls on his trousers and reaches for his shirt, and then he sees the blood. Its splattered across the collar and runs in drips all down one sleeve. On the chest, just above where his heart would be is a clearly marked handprint, a small handprint like a child's. He grimaces, and lets the shirt fall to the floor. He turns away from Eliza, leaning his hand against the mantelpiece and going completely still, he does not even breathe. Eliza starts speaking then, and every word cuts deep and cold into him.

'Since we met, you told me what you were. I did not believe you at first, but then you showed me your eyes and teeth. Though I was afraid I told myself I did not care. I love him I thought, and what is love if not forgiveness? I got to know you better, and I saw your nervousness, your care for detail and the fastidiousness you try to hide. I saw you love me back, or so I believed. I knew you killed people, but I told myself that you did it for me, and so I had no reason to tell you to stop, for I could not let you go. I was as selfish and cruel as you. But I told myself you would only kill the villains, was that not why you go to Whitechapel before you come to me. Do not deny it either, for I have been there when doing charity, and there is no other smell like it. So, now I know what a fool I have been. How many children have you murdered so you can lie with me, Hal York? How many mothers and fathers and young girls? I love you, but I cannot condone this killing anymore. Not when you come to me with childrens bloody handprints on your shirt.'

She is crying now, sobs burning through her words. He hears a thud and he turns around, wishing his heartbeat would pound in his chest, wishing he could feel something apart from cold. Eliza has fallen to the floor, holding herself tightly, her eyes huge and wet in in her white tear stained face.

'What should I do?' She asks desperately, but he does not think she is talking to him. 'I cannot let you go, but things cannot go on as they are.' She shakes her head and clings more tightly to herself. Hal steps forward and kneels down in front of her. He does not try to touch her, he does not try to fool her he is human by breathing. He just sits and as he does she calms down a little, her breath coming more easily then before.

'There is nothing I can say, or do so you will forgive me then?' his voice is soft, and his full bottom lip is pulled in tight against his teeth. She stares into those hazel eyes, taking in his face, his strong slender body, his thickly tousled hair and pale pale skin. He is perfect and wonderful, and she was doomed from the moment she met him at that party. I will die for him, she thinks, I cannot leave him, I will stay with him even if he kills me.

'Can you stop?' she whispers, barely audible. 'Could you stop? Can it be done?'

He looks away. He wants to lie, to tell her it is not possible, that he has to kill. But he has stopped before. Or at least he has had times when he has been kinder, when he has only killed cruel men, evildoers, drunks and cutthroats, thieves and fellow murderers. But if he tells her it can be done, he knows she will convince him that he should try again. If he does, and even if he manages to go clean for awhile, he knows that when he breaks, as he invariably does, she will be the first one he kills. Maybe, he thinks, as he looks into her eyes her strange, beautiful, mismatched eyes, she already knows this deep down. Maybe it's why she has never asked before now. Since Hal met her he had felt that change in himself, the shift that meant he was coming to the end of this cruelest of cycles. Slowly he looks at her and says the words he knows in future he will hate himself for saying.

'Yes, Eliza. It can be done.'

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**Ah hem, so tell me what ya think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N So maybe this chapter is a bit mushy and maybe a little slow but this is kind of a character development chapter. Don't worry, its all going to kick off in the next chapter! **

**Thanks to my reviewers, can't quite believe people have actually read my story! Thanks to Ruby Rosetta Red for chatting about writing style. I really enjoy that!**

**Last thing, if people feel Hal is being very… emotional it's because I was thinking about what Tom said to Hal, how he's a scaredy cat because he is not "all blooded up". So I was thinking what was Hal like around women when he was all blooded up? I mean, how drunk on blood would he have to be to seduce someone with a thousand tulips! **

**Disclaimer: Being Human and all its wonderful characters belong to Lord Toby of Whithouse. Excuse my messing around with them. It's just to fill the time until the next series!**

**Chapter 2**

Eliza sits by the hearth, her eyes fixed blankly on the spot where she and Hal had lain only six hours before. She wears a simple day dress of mourning black, a heavy black jet pendent carved in the shape of a wilting rose hangs about her neck, and a pair of jet earrings are clipped to her ears. Apart from this she is unadorned, except for a plain silver band on her ring finger set with one small ruby at the very center of the band, which she twists incessantly around her finger. Her auburn curls are gathered in a loose style at the back of her head, and her different coloured eyes are heavy lidded and unfocused. She had been up all night waiting for Hal, and is exhausted from the quick succession of intense emotions in the few hours she did see him for. She can almost see him there on the rug in front of the hearth; his boyish smile and his predators' strength making him look ridiculously contradictory. She closes her eyes, trying to block out the memories. Trying not to remember what he had said before he had left, as the first rays of day had come streaming through the gap in the curtains. But it comes back to her now and she hears his voice once again.

He had said, face tight and hard, 'If I am going to do this, there are things I have to arrange. We will also have to leave London. Are you prepared to do that?' She had said yes. What else could she say after all? He had told her what it would mean if he stopped drinking blood. He had told her about the agony of the withdrawal, that it was worse then opium withdrawal, that he would stop being himself, that he would hate her, and hurt her if he could, until the blood faded from his system. That, even if they did succeed in detoxifying him, she would have to spend the rest of her life trying to keep him that way. That it would be a long hard road they would travel, and that he would likely kill her at the end of it. He had looked at her, blood on his neck, his face very still, and had asked her, without saying a word, if he was worth it. In answer she had walked to where he stood, placed her hand where that child must have hours before, feeling the stillness in his chest, where a heart should beat. She had kissed him, soft and slow. It was all the answer he had needed.

He had finished getting dressed and had left, saying he would return soon, and that she should make her own arrangements, to be ready to leave the city. They would go to Eliza's country house, a mansion in Devon that had been shut up since her mother's death five years before. When her father had died just under a year ago, Eliza had had no other living family. So all of the money of her father's estate had passed to her. Eliza Montgomery was probably the richest and most eligible woman in London. There was no title to go with the land, but in a London where the aristocracy was slowly becoming something of a novelty, and money was steadily becoming the province of those that could earn it, the fact that she had no title was not so surprising. It was more that she was so obscenely rich, as a women of twenty, and with absolutely no family, and that she had not particularly made her relationship with Lord Henry York, notorious gambler and all round Byronic, a secret. They had been seen at teas together, at the opera and parties, eating dinner in Covent Garden and strolling together along the Embankment, mostly unchaperoned, which was the truly scandalous thing about it all.

When Eliza had met him, she had been swept away and enchanted, caring little for what everyone thought. She was still grieving for her father, and the suddenness of not being responsible for anyone else, or worrying about anyone else's reputation had sent her into a mad whirlwind of gambling, drinking and parties. The fact that Hal was probably the most notorious member of this set of society had meant that it was inevitable that they should meet.

She remembered that moment when she had first seen him, glass full of deep red liquid ( it was blood, though she had not known it at the time of course) hanging nonchalantly from one hand, leaning against a pillar and surrounded by admirers and hangers on. He had looked terribly bored, hazel eyes moving absently over the crowd, not even listening to the pretty girl almost hanging on his arm, her huge blue eyes fixed adoringly on his face. In that moment their eyes met, and an electrical shock of understand flashed between them. He had raised one eyebrow, a slight smile quirking his full lips. Eliza smiles to herself as she remembers how she had set her empty champagne glass on the table beside her and had walked across the room towards him, their eyes never leaving each other. She had walked right up to him, bold and smiling and asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, 'Would you like to dance?'

She had flouted about every law of etiquette that existed between men and women. They had not even been introduced. Admittedly she had been a little drunk, and maybe half mad from grief and boredom. But he had been just as bored, and she had captivated him with her strangeness. Of course he had known who she was. There were not many women in London, who had enough money for a dress like hers, had eyes like hers, and who would actually go to a party while being in mourning. It was not long after that he had told her what he was. It was not long after that she had said she loved him, and asked him to come to her that night. At least she did not have to worry about getting pregnant, she had thought at the time.

Back then she had not truly realised what would happen, or what she had invited into her life. But she knew that what they had was real, and that she would not give it up, even if death were the consequence of her actions. The fact that the amount of people he killed every night had tripled after he had met her, because of his fear that he would kill her, would always weigh upon her soul. But then she had given up on God the day her father had drawn his last agonized breath.

There is a soft knock at the door, and she is pulled from the memories. She had things she must deal with now, and they were more pressing then the past.

'Come in.' she calls, standing up from her chair. The door opens and her maid Amy comes in silently, her pale eyes down cast, her hands clasped neatly in front of her blindingly white apron.

'The gentleman you sent for has arrived, missus.'

'Very well, send him in. And close the door behind him when you leave Amy.' The dismissal is clear in her words, and though Amy purses her lips disapprovingly she does not protest. She leaves and as she does a man steps past her. He is surprising in this setting to say the least. Seeing him standing there in the parlour the eye almost tries to deny that he is there. He is beyond giant, a huge hulking figure, at least six foot seven, maybe taller. His skin is the deep chocolate brown of the African continent, and his muscles move like boulders under his skin. He wears the clothes of a respectable businessman, but they look odd on his hulking frame. He bows slightly to her, holding his dark grey bowler casually in one hand.

'Goliath.' She says, by way of greeting. He had been one of her fathers slaves before he had freed the giant for saving Eliza's life from a runaway horse. This had been in 1826, just before the declaration that slavery within the British Empire was piracy. Not that her father was not a pirate, or privateer as he had actually been, but he simply did not want to be so obvious in it. But Goliath, or Gol as he was known, had chosen to work for her father doing anything he needed doing. In fact, it was jut the same as before, except that her father had started to pay Gol instead. When Eliza's father had died, she had cut down on the amount of servants she had dramatically, as she simply did not need or want them. But Gol was always there, and though she had no longer had a need of him, she had not asked him to find other employment as she had so many of the others. She found that the need she had for him now was ridiculous and infuriating, but necessary.

Gol does not speak unless he has to. Her father had told her once that Gol disliked English, that he found it course and unsophisticated compared to his own language.

'I have need of your services Gol.' The giant nods, his dark eyes glittering with curiousity.

The gentlemen's club is close to St James' Palace. It reeks of privilege and two hundred years of pure pomp, the polished oak doors alone warning off any riffraff. Hal looks up at those doors, remembering the small son of whores who stood looking at similar doors, and who never dreamed that he would walk through such doors with a familiar ease. Hal smiles wryly to himself. He has not thought of his childhood in years, and this is evidence enough that he is coming to the end of his cruelest cycle yet. He walks up the steps and enters the club. A valet takes his coat, hat and cane and shows him through to a private dining room. Fergus is already there, muddy boots up on the polished mahogany table, pipe clamped between his small, mean lips. A slender young girl wearing only her corset and underclothes is gagged and tied up next to Fergus, and one of his hands rests nonchalantly in her hair.

'A gift for you my Lord.' Fergus says, grinning cruelly. He grabs the girl by her hair and throws her to land at Hals feet. Hal looks down at her shaking and terrified form, and feels a sickening mix of desire, need and disgust rising in him. He does not yet feel the gnawing need to feed, yet he had killed that family at least twelve hours before and he can feel the need rising in him, like an earth deep hum. Then he thinks of Eliza, her amber and blue eyes staring at him in the light before dawn, her lips twisted in pain and grief. He had promised her he would not kill until he saw her again. But how to not make Fergus suspicious. He is still a young vampire, barely turned twenty years ago, and his appetite almost rivals Hals own. He might find it odd enough if Hal does not kill the girl to tell Wyndham, and Hal certainly does not want to warn the other Old One of his actions.

'I am not here for pleasure Fergus. I'm here for business. I will take her late if I wish to. I want a clear head for now.' Fergus shrugs and sits back down, but with his boots firmly on the ground. He has heard Hals tone and obeys without thinking. He was a corporal in the army before he had been recruited and could not resist that firm authority in Hals voice.

'The others will be here soon my Lord.'

'Good. But I do not need to speak to them. You will tell them that all of my dealings are to be shut down immediately. The dog fights, my business in the docks, the opium smuggling. Shut it all down. Buy some more shares, anything Robert Mercer thinks might do well in the next fifty years or so. Then lodge all of my capital in my private account in the Bank of England. All of it, do you hear Fergus?'

'But my Lord!' Fergus cries in pure confusion, his eyes wide with surprise.

'No buts Fergus. Just do it. Get the others to do it. I do not care what you have to do, just get it done.'

'Why?' says the other vampire a little desperately. Fergus had been abandoned by his maker and Hal had seen his potential and taken him under his wing. Hal was the only stability Fergus had known since his recruitment, and he had followed Hal faithfully for the last ten years.

'I am leaving London for awhile. I am not sure when I shall return.'

'A..are you going alone?' he asks, a pathetic note of hope in his voice.

'Yes.' says Hal firmly. He voice brooks no argument and Fergus stands looking lost and miserable. Hal sighs and shakes his head. Next time he leaves the other vampires he will not tell them. It would probably have been easier to just leave. But he had worked hard for the past two hundred years to accumulate his wealth, and he could not give it up so easily. For money was power, and he had spent enough of his mortal life being powerless. He would not go back to that.

'Keep the others in line for me until I get back.' He says, some uncharacteristic mercy entering his tone. Fergus nods and Hal turns around to walk out of the door. He gets to the front door and has his hat and coat on before Fergus catches up to him.

'This is about her? That human bitch that you've been all over recently, isn't it?'

Hal grimaces and shakes his head. 'Goodbye Fergus.'

He is out the front door before Fergus can say anything else. He has several business ventures and bank accounts that he has kept secret from his vampire associates and he will have to sort them out before he can return to Eliza. Will he be able to last? To not kill until he sees her again? And what will happen if he does, will he just kill her before he can stop himself? He shivers and wraps his coat more firmly around himself, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight and hurries through Piccadilly, already feeling the sweat of withdrawal forming on his cold skin.


End file.
